Forums @ Antelope Valley Thespians

Is acting a mask?

I don't mean that in the literal way; Basel, Commedia, and Classic Greek acting styles are good in their own right but I mean as far as method (with a lower case "m").

I'm no expert, on the contrary I admittedly know very little on the subject, but personally I tend to work with the assumption that it is not.

I have kept the philosophy for some time now that when I act I have only myself to bring to the table. I have never experienced anything other than my life, that is all that I have to draw on, the things that I experience on the stage are, to a certain extent, real. I believe that every human emotion can be brought forth from any person's life experience. All of us have known pain, fear, anger, grief, joy, peace, and every other emotion in some way or another. Boleslavsky put it well when he illustrated murder with the killing of a mosquito; it's different from killing a person yes, but the feeling is there and with a little imagination those very real, though trivial, emotions can become something powerful on the stage.


There are downsides though. For one, using one's own emotions to act is dangerous. The actor who chooses that method opens himself to the possibility of using some experience or feeling that he can't control. One's emotions must remain the tool not the master or the actor risks sending himself down a long dark road that will be painful and maybe even impossible to climb back up.


I don't have much experience with the other side of the argument but, from what I understand, there are certainly pros and cons.

To act without bringing (the ever classic example) your grandmother's death onstage, one uses their body to imitate what a person does when they felt a certain way, not what a person actually felt. To be sure, done correctly, from a logical point of view this method would be indistinguishable from the other. The end result would not only be the same but the danger would also be non-existent.

The con is that the actor who uses this method runs the risk of, for lack of a better way to say it, not being real. Because the emotion isn't really there, there is always the danger of the audience being able to tell. Just like how you can sometimes tell a person is lying to you; when you use a mask, you lie to the audience and yourself, sometimes with beautiful and powerful results, but nonetheless it is still a lie.


Any thoughts?